My Katana woes.

Telejester

jonnyburgo said:

Laney vc20 112, great at all volumes, Or an Egnater Tweaker combo, pretty compact, lots of options

just not the tweaker 40 though, more horror stories about that amp than stories by edgar allen poe.

grungebob

ICBM said:

grungebob said:

There’s still this odd frequency that’s accentuated with volume.

That may be something to do with the speaker. It might either to break in more, or need a different one.

I remember from what other people have said that the 50W model has a different speaker from the 100, with a smaller magnet.

Is there any easy way of hooking it up to the Mesa speaker temporarily?

The Mesa is an 8 ohm I think and the boss a 4 ohm? Would need to check.  I’m willing to keep trying as despite its limitations I do kind of like it for the cleans and milder stuff. 

ICBM

grungebob said:

The Mesa is an 8 ohm I think and the boss a 4 ohm? Would need to check.  I’m willing to keep trying as despite its limitations I do kind of like it for the cleans and milder stuff. 

It would be OK that way round, the Boss would just put out less power - but the Mesa speaker will be more efficient so it won't affect the volume. (Or you may even get more.)

grungebob

Ok so took the amp to work today and smashed the snot out of the speaker via an MP3 player everything on full whack for three hours. Came home plugged in and it’s sounding much better, there’s  low ends for some chug to it now and the nasal harshness is all but gone. 
 I’m proper chuffed. 

skunkwerx

Thats awesome. Love it when stuff works out!

Voxman

grungebob said:k

Ok so took the amp to work today and smashed the snot out of the speaker via an MP3 player everything on full whack for three hours. Came home plugged in and it’s sounding much better, there’s  low ends for some chug to it now and the nasal harshness is all but gone. 
 I’m proper chuffed. 

Good stuff!  Breaking in speakers is SO important and it really does make a huge difference!

maltingsaudio

My recommendation is Bluguitar Amp1, at home through an 8” inch speaker for neighbour friendly volumes, same settings into 4x12 for stage

monquixote

maltingsaudio said:

My recommendation is Bluguitar Amp1, at home through an 8” inch speaker for neighbour friendly volumes, same settings into 4x12 for stage

I hated the Amp1 and my bandmates complained bitterly that it was totally lost in the mix.

I'd take a Katana any day.

Cabicular

monquixote said:

maltingsaudio said:

My recommendation is Bluguitar Amp1, at home through an 8” inch speaker for neighbour friendly volumes, same settings into 4x12 for stage

I hated the Amp1 and my bandmates complained bitterly that it was totally lost in the mix.

I'd take a Katana any day.

I hated mine too
horrible fizzy thing 

Voxman

Cabicular said:

monquixote said:

maltingsaudio said:

My recommendation is Bluguitar Amp1, at home through an 8” inch speaker for neighbour friendly volumes, same settings into 4x12 for stage

I hated the Amp1 and my bandmates complained bitterly that it was totally lost in the mix.

I'd take a Katana any day.

I hated mine too
horrible fizzy thing 

I tried one..it was just dreadful, tone was 'meh' at best, sounded flat and digital.

ICBM

Voxman said:

I tried one..it was just dreadful, tone was 'meh' at best, sounded flat and digital.

Likewise. I couldn't get a usable balance between the channels even with the fiddly annoying knobs on the side either.

TheBigDipper

And I'm really happy with my AMP1, just to give an alternative view. I can, and do, get nice tones from it and it cuts through the mix in a band with a lot of the frequencies taken up by keyboards. It's light, small and loud. The emulated speaker out is acceptable for home practice (but an IR plugin in the DAW is better for recordings). I use a Fatcab 1x12, too and that's fine in a band situation. The AMP1 doesn't need to be connected to a speaker and the inbuilt Power Soak works well. 

Still, I respect the opinions of others who didn't like it.  That's the story of all amps, surely? Including Katanas...

richardhomer

TheBigDipper said:

And I'm really happy with my AMP1, just to give an alternative view. I can, and do, get nice tones from it and it cuts through the mix in a band with a lot of the frequencies taken up by keyboards. It's light, small and loud. The emulated speaker out is acceptable for home practice (but an IR plugin in the DAW is better for recordings). I use a Fatcab 1x12, too and that's fine in a band situation. The AMP1 doesn't need to be connected to a speaker and the inbuilt Power Soak works well. 

I know a pro player who uses an Amp 1 on certain flying dates. He plays in Steve Rothery’s band and has just come back from playing in Argentina with them. The Amp 1 was used on those dates.

He’s something of a tone obsessive - so I assume they can be made to work well.

p90fool

@TheBigDipper playing in a band with a keyboard player is a test for any amp IMO, as well as the owner's ability to dial it in well, maybe I should send you my Katana!  

Parker

Gigged my Katana 50 on Saturday night. Used it two thirds on the volume. Just clean through my board. Plenty of headroom and depth. Didn’t miss the valves or the weight! That said, I’m sure I can’t say good bye to valves forever and will likely get something in the New Year for bigger gigs as I’m not convinced it’ll carry well in a large marquee gig, etc. 

TheBigDipper

p90fool said:

@TheBigDipper playing in a band with a keyboard player is a test for any amp IMO, as well as the owner's ability to dial it in well, maybe I should send you my Katana!  

No, don't do that! The Katana is a quasi-modelling amp, isn't it? But just to fill in how the AMP1 works in a band setting...

It is all analogue (apart from the digital reverb). The preamp is solid state, the first stage of the power amp is the nanotube and then it goes into a class D power amp behind. There two channels, IMHO, not four. "Four" is just marketing guff. There's a clean channel and an overdrive channel. The overdrive channel has three different voicings available - vintage, classic and modern. (That's how people get the channel count to four). I use clean and the vintage voice most of the time. Both are fine with pedals. The idea is you balance the volume between clean and overdrive using the standard preamp volume controls on the top of the amp and balance between the three overdrive voicings using the little rotaries on the side of the amp. As ICBM experienced, that is hard to get right and I don't use it that way. On these channels, the amp lets the guitar sound come through, so you can use the guitar controls for tonal variation, rather than going over to the amp and twiddling tone settings between songs. 

What many people don't realise is the tone controls on the top of the amp are not for adjusting your guitar tone so it sounds nice to your ears on a song-by-song basis. They are for adjusting your overall tonality so you sit in the band mix nicely in the room you're in. They don't work like the preamp controls on a standard guitar amp. They aren't interdependent. They are like a channel strip on a mixer. At a venue, you get the guitar to sit in the mix and just leave them there for the evening. I start at 5/10 on each one and adjust accordingly. Yes, I can find that my guitar tone (in isolation) sometimes isn't as nice as I'd like, but it sits in the mix well and sounds good there. 

Back to the OP. I think an AMP1 would do what you're looking for, but it's an expensive way of doing it compared to other choices mentioned. At home, I don't use it much - I've got a 1W Sheldon and a 6W Harlequin. With a band, though, I really like using it. 

grungebob

I have spent much more time with this amp and now I can understand what all the fuss is about, as a low volume amp for home use and late night practicing i dont think you could find a better amp especially if you factor in the price.  
It still loses some bass dynamics for me at higher volumes that another go at tweaking the EQ may solve but all in all im not missing my Mesa at all plus im £500 up!

grungebob

V2 software installed, tweaked and this is sounding huge now at low volumes. There’s still this weird frequency that comes in at volume though so I personally couldn’t gig this amp but for home use you can’t beat it. 

p90fool

grungebob said:

V2 software installed, tweaked and this is sounding huge now at low volumes. There’s still this weird frequency that comes in at volume though so I personally couldn’t gig this amp but for home use you can’t beat it. 

Exactly why I sold mine, but it's a great practice and rehearsal amp.